Posts Tagged ‘costs’

Help: ‘Cutting my international roaming costs’

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

I got this note in from a reader the other day asking about my advice on international calling solutions whilst he’s abroad this Christmas:

Dear Ewan,

I am going away to Dubai over Xmas and after getting stung for an enormous mobile bill whilst in the states, I want to get a sim that will not cost the earth for calls to and from the UK.

When away in the summer I got hit for a bill of around £250 which was daft considering everything and I don’t want the same to happen again whilst away over Xmas.

Any ideas or solutions would be welcome, even if it means testing something for you to try and curb the costs!

Regards

David

Now then David. First off, you’ve got Truphone. Super if you’re going to have WiFi access. And they’ve got a Blackberry client that you might like to try out. But it’s not going to be much use to you when you’re roaming in Dubai as it’s more useful when you’re in the UK, calling internationally.

SIM4Travel, also owned by Truphone, will offer you free incoming calls whilst you’re in Dubai (er, or the United Arab Emirates, Dubai isn’t listed in their rate checker) and charge you £0.45 per minute to call the UK.

Does anyone have some suggestions for David?

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T-Mobile Android based G1 phone costs just £93

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

Research firm iSuppli has it the G1 costs just $144 to build, where it’s selling for $179 in the states.

All the materials and components used just add up to a meagre amount, a lot lower than we would expect in terms of the profitability normally associated with handsets.

The HTC manufactured device, minus the software, research and development has the analysis worked out on the physical examination of the phone.

Although they admitted hadn’t yet taken apart the phone for a complete breakdown on all the components inside, which does include the processor and modem core designed by ARM.

iSuppli had factored in though the display, camera, the radio functions which included the HSDPA part of it all.

They went on to state it lacks the “wow factor” of other handsets such as the iPhone, which we concur.

What they do believe is that the integration with Google’s services, plus their apps could be a major advantage of the G1.

Let’s see if they re-evaluate the report with a more thorough investigation, but it’s interesting still to say the least. More can be read on the report here -http://www.isuppli.com/MarketWatchDetail.aspx?ID=309.

We’re just wondering, out of interest what the cost would have been if the G1 were to have run Windows Mobile instead and if a calculator could ever produce a figure that high.

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Posted in Mobile, T-Mobile | Comments

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